Sandra Shamis'
collection

Half of a silk Pha biang with silk
supplementary weft, made commercially in Laos fairly recently.
The silk weaving is extremely fine, but the blue
supplementary weft is probably not indigo, since indigo is very
difficult to fix on silk.

How do I know it's contemporary? Because
the diamond motif is traditionally woven on only one end of
the Pha biang, not on both ends as it is here. The
other end would have a naak design or some other traditional
pattern. Anyway, I really loved the silk, and was only mildly
bemused to see another one with orange (probably natural dye)
taking its place.

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